Why I'm Glad Dwyane Wade Is Out of the NBA Playoffs

Last night I overheard a conversation that made me nearly throw up. The conversation was centered around the best players in basketball, and as I walked by this exchange was taking place:

Guy No. 1: No way you don’t include D-Wade on that list. Guy No. 2: I’m not sure if he is in that upper tier of players. Guy No. 1: What?! He carried a crappy team to an NBA Championship!

Guy No. 1 should be shot, plain and simple (for more details on his completely inaccurate analysis of Dwyane Wade’s accomplishments see point No. 2 below).

My disillusion with Dwyane Wade could stem from a number of sources. For all I know. it could have started when he wrecked my bracket at Marquette (who really had Marquette in the Elite Eight that year?).

While I genuinely dislike the player, I couldn’t find a common thread to center this article around. Because of this, I decided to produce a rant against Dwyane Wade through a fantastic series of bullet points.

Here are the reasons why I am glad that Dwyane Wade is out of the playoffs (and consequently can no longer be proverbially dry-humped by referees and media alike):

1. I Remember 2006

This might not be the most relevant point to the article, but if I am making a list of why I dislike Dwyane Wade this has to be number one.

Dwyane Wade committed theft in 2006, robbing the Dallas Mavericks of a should-have-been-could-have-been National Championship. I do not like the Mavericks nor have I ever been a Mavericks fan, but even I sent out my deepest condolences to Mavs’ jackass owner Mark Cuban after the 2006 NBA Finals officiating.

Consider these scrumptious tidbits of knowledge:

Wade obliterated the NBA Finals six-game series record for free throw attempts, tallying 97 total attempts

Wade surpassed Shaquille O’Neal (93 attempts in the 2000 NBA Finals) to obtain this record. You might recall, the only reason O’Neal attempted this many free throws is because the other team was intentionally trying to foul him (Hack-A-Shaq).

Translation: Dwyane Wade shot more free throws in the 2006 NBA Finals than a player who was intentionally fouled nearly every possession in multiple games of a series.

Wade shot 25 free throw attempts in game five alone. To put this into perspective, the entire Dallas Mavericks team also shot 25 free throws that game. Bill Simmons had this to say about game five: “Dwyane Wade shot as many free throws (25) as the entire Dallas team in Game Five. I just don’t see how there’s any way this can happen in a fairly-called game. It’s theoretically impossible.”

All fanhood aside, any NBA follower had to recognize that D-Wade probably sent a personalized gift basket to every official involved in the 2006 NBA Finals.

For anyone who thinks this was a thing of the past, take a look at this stat from the Miami-Atlanta Game Six box score Saturday night: Dwyane Wade attempted 17 free throws, while the Atlanta Hawks' entire roster attempted 16.

I’m not directly implying foul play, but it makes you wonder doesn’t it? To quote Simmons again, I just don’t see how there’s any way this can happen in a fairly-called game. It’s theoretically impossible.”

2. Despite What the Favre-esque Media Coverage Will Tell You, Dwyane Wade Cannot and Did Not Win an NBA Championship By Himself

Basketball experts will lead you to believe that Dwyane Wade led a team of misfits to an NBA title in 2006. What these experts forget is that Wade has the assistance of one of the greatest and arguably the most dominant center of all-time.

Loaded down with rings from a three-peat in Los Angeles, Shaquille O’Neal arrived in Miami and instantly accelerated Dwyane Wade’s progression into an NBA superstar. This was nothing new to Shaq, however, as he previously played with one time All-Star AnferneeHardaway and future Hall-of-FamerKobe Bryant.

I’m not saying D-Wade didn’t lead the Heat in 2006, but I am saying that he did it with some serious help in Shaquille O’Neal. O’Neal has a savvy for turning young talented guards into superstars, and he did it again in Miami.

3. Dwyane Wade Stands for Everything I Dislike in the Modern NBA

Also See: Paul Pierce.

The NBA is in one of its largest downswings in history. The last time its fanbase got this low, Michael Jordan and crew showed up and everything was cured by the early 1990s.

I have recently stopped regularly watching the NBA, but it’s not for a lack of starpower. Instead, my lack of NBA enthusiasm came from a complete disinterest in the style of basketball currently played in the NBA.

Dwyane Wade is not the only player who personifies this new style of play, but he is one of them.

Here is a sample of what I dislike about the NBA’s new style of play:

The Me-First Mentality - An example of this is blocked shots. Dwyane Wade improved his blocked shots for the 2008-09 season. When asked why, Wade emphasized that opponents had to know that they couldn’t go up against him.

Really, Dwyane? You couldn’t say because blocks help your team? Or that you just wanted to get better on defense? No. You opted for the most self-glorifying answer available.

Bill Russell often criticizes modern shot-blockers for their actions after the block. According to Russell, the point of a block is to either gain possession of the ball or deflect it to a teammate.

Not in the modern NBA. The modern NBA says: hit the ball as far as you can into the bleachers then do some sort of celebration into the camera. That is what I hate about the NBA right now.

The Year-Round All-Star Game Defense - The NBA may as well change their slogan to “We might not play defense but we will definitely dunk the ball a lot!” As players focus more on scoring and less on defense the NBA has shifted to a business focused more on entertainment than basketball fundamentals.

The NBA All-Star game infamously lacks defense because thats what All-Star game fans want to see. Unfortunately, this tendency is finding it’s way into the regular season as well.

The Abandonment of Rules In Favor of Ratings - Traveling. Enough said. I have never seen the intergrity of a sport more compromised than when the NBA unofficially loosened its officiating on traveling violations.

Players don’t understand that you are allowed either a pivot or a jump stop. Often times players take both and then take a third or fourth. There is no such thing as a “crab dribble,” or a number of variations to the jump stop. Instead, there are just hordes of basketball players who have discovered that the NBA is not strict on a players movements as he cuts through the key…

Will he win the MVP this year? Probably. Should he win the MVP this year? Maybe. But this has nothing to do with the fact that I cannot stand the combination of his style of play and the media’s obsession with him.

In layman’s terms: I’m tired of hearing about Dwyane Wade and because of this I am glad that he is out of this year’s NBA Playoffs.